#PrayForParis

Posted on by Carla Caban

Two weeks ago the exciting city of Paris was attacked by terrorist from ISIS in an attacks that killed around 125 people. Since then, people’s sentiments have been felt around social media in order to show support and sympathy to the people that were suffering from great loses of people they loved. Platforms like Facebook and SnapChat let users participate more distinctly in their support for Paris. Facebook let their users change their profile picture to one with the France flag over it in order to show solidarity and raise awareness of the tragic event. SnapChat also participated in this by creating a live story of what was going on there in Paris and creating filters that let people share them on their stories and thus create awareness and support for Paris.

Twitter was also a big platform where people wanted to share their sentiments about the attack. However, there were a handful of tweets and others posts criticizing the big movement and questioning why they didn’t do the same for countries like Syria or Beirut, even Mali when they also have been attacked and their people have been killed.

These people felt they needed to address the fact that other countries were not receiving the same attention. Some even approached the subject with sarcasm implying that people post on Twitter or social media but that at the end of the day is not really doing anything to make a change.

I think it is important to understand that every person deals with grief or loss differently and they sometimes need to share them on social media, some might not agree with how or what they say but it is something that everyone expresses in their own way.

3 thoughts on “#PrayForParis”

  1. What surprised me is how people could try and knock others praying for Paris and not the whole world. If Paris is closer to home for some people I think it’s ok to push more thoughts towards that situation. That doesn’t mean other situations aren’t as important or terrible, it just means that is what touches them the most.

  2. I really liked the integration of the video clip of the four roommates and their public demonstration of peace in the metro as a part of this #PrayForParis post. I agree with Andrew that it’s shameful the way that some people on social media choose to knock down those who wish to pray for other atrocities happening around the world, But I think the video was a really poignant way to articulate world peace. It was very powerful and I think their statement made much more of an impact than maybe a tweet or a social media post. Everybody grieves in different ways, but its nice to be reminded of the power of actual human interaction.

  3. I really enjoyed reading this piece, I never thought of it that people should be showing support for everyone and not just one country. I agree that everyone has their own way of expressing their feelings. Sometimes I feel like its annoying when people are posting things they don’t really know anything about but then you have to think that this is their way of getting out how they feel.

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